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| History of China |
One of the oldest remains of man, called the peking man, was discovered in China. These remains are said to be 5,00,000 years old. The first human settlements or villages are said to have been founded in China around 5000 B.C. and the first Chinese city was built around 3500 B.C. Subsequent to this there were various dynasties or royal families, which ruled China, amongst the first was the Shang dynasty which ruled between 1523 and 1027 B.C.
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The first forms of writing and the Chinese calendar were developed in this period. Some of the greatest Chinese inventions include, gunpowder, paper, ink, printing, etc. They also discovered things like from which they wove fine fabric. One of the greatest scholars of China was man called Confucius and his thoughts and proverbs are quoted even today. China was ruled by a number of families till around 200 B.C. when the Ch’in family united China and built the Great Wall. Between 206 B.C. and 220 A.D. this area was ruled by the Han dynasty. It was during this period that Buddhism came to China. Other dynasties ruled China till the year 1279 when the Mongols invaded China and ruled it till 1368 when the Ming dynasty took over.
During this period China saw the advent of the Europeans who came as missionaries and traders. In the coming years the Chinese began to trade with the west and foreign domination gradually began to increase.
The power of the emperors began to gradually decrease and in the year 1911 the Emperor abdicated the throne.
A year after the abdication, China was declated a republic with Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Kuomintang party, as the President. In 1921 the Chinese Communist party was founded by Mao Zedong. Mao expelled Chiang Kai-shek the then leader of the Kuomintang party and became the leader of China. He stayed in power till has a Communist government with its capital at Beijing.
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